


Between Palms

by loststardust



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Kink Discovery, Maids, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loststardust/pseuds/loststardust
Summary: You catch Michael off guard; what had meant to be a joke, becomes something more. Something neither of you expected.
Relationships: Michael Gray/Original Female Character(s), Michael Gray/Reader, Michael Gray/You
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Between Palms

It seemed silly really, a birthday meal at Arrow House, but here you were. Invite accepted and fulfilled, even though you were just there as a plus one. An almost family member. Michael had you living in his house, accompanying him to every event, and yet your finger was still empty of the ring you both knew would come eventually. He’s waiting for the right moment, you suppose. It doesn’t really matter. Everyone knows he’s yours, and you’re his. Even Polly is starting to treat you like a daughter.

‘Is it his actual birthday today?’ you ask Michael, as he takes your coat in the entry way.

‘Don’t know.’ He passes it to Mary, who you’ve only just been introduced to. 'Tomorrow I think.’

You hum. This was the family version then, they’d spend his birthday alone, just the two of them. ‘It’s quite sweet, isn’t it?’ you muse. You’d never have marked either Tommy or Lizzie as the sentimental sort.

Michael snorts. ‘Sweet, yeah.’ From his smirk, you know he doesn’t even remotely agree.

‘The meal is being served,’ Mary tells you, careful in her interruption. ‘If you’ll follow me?’

‘Oh, course, sorry.’ You nod and gesture for her to continue; you’d almost forgotten that the both of you were late. ‘Come on,’ you say to Michael, offering your hand.

He takes it readily, his palm warm and soft against yours. From the look of him, his sharp suits, his set hair and his square jaw, you’d always assumed he would shy away from touches like that. That he’d keep his hands in his pockets and his character professional, impenetrable. But, he never does with you. Whenever you give your hand, he takes it, locks his fingers around it. He’d let you pull him half way across the world, you think. If you tried.

In the main dining room, you’re met by the rest of the family. They’re seated already, talking and drinking around the platters of food, the plates already filled with some expensive cut of meat. The conversation stills as you enter, a few of them beginning to stand to greet you.

‘No, no don’t,’ you say quickly, waving them down again. ‘We’ve got time for that later.’

‘Tommy,’ Michael says, acknowledging him with a nod. ‘Happy Birthday.’

‘Yes,’ you add, ‘we left your gift with Mary.’ You’re sure he doesn’t care what it is, you don’t even know that he’ll ever open it. It’d had felt wrong to go to a birthday party without taking something.

Tommy almost matches your waiting smile. It’s as much of a response as you’ll get. ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing to the two empty chairs, ‘sit down. Get a drink.’

You take your seat which is, of course, next to Michael. Your Michael. He’s holding the chair out for you, ready to tuck it in as you sit. Always the gentleman like it’s second nature. Like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. You smile up at him in thanks, but he just touches your shoulder briefly before sitting himself. ‘Looks great,’ he comments, eyes down as he scans the lay of food and alcohol before him. His accent’s stronger when he’s with them, like he picks it up at the door. At home it almost disappears, melts into something softer, some remnant of his upbringing. You haven’t decided yet which it is that you prefer. It’s what he says that charms you.

‘It’s nice of you to have us, Tommy,’ you say, leaning around Michael to smile at him.

He’s sitting at the head of the table, as uninterested in the food as you’d expected him to be. His eyebrows raise in response to your comment, and he half-shakes his head, as if to say, oh it’s no problem, no trouble. From the way Lizzie’s smiling beside him, you know that it was all her really. Her idea, her planning. She wanted him and the family to have something nice for once and so here you were.

‘And Lizzie, of course,’ you add. ‘Thank-you.’

‘Our pleasure,’ she replies gently, lifting her glass. ‘Please, eat. Before it gets cold.’

You nod and bring your focus back to Michael, who’s lit a cigarette and is now resting between drags. It sits between his fingers on the table, smoke pulling up and over his plate, swirling his meal in grey. How he doesn’t mind, you have no idea. He may as well peel it open and eat the tobacco instead.

‘Michael,’ you scold quietly, knocking your elbow against his. ‘Put it out.’

He clears his throat and sits straighter, lifting the cigarette for a final taste. ‘Was in my head,’ he comments on the exhale, before taking another sharp, final drag. ‘Think we should do something like this.’

You watch him lean forward and stub the cigarette out, into the ashtray in the middle. ‘Do what?’

‘Have a dinner,’ he says, sitting back again. ‘For you, for your birthday.’

Snorting, you shake your head and turn to pick up your cutlery. The house you have together is nowhere near big enough to accommodate for the Shelby side, let alone your family too. Not that you would invite them anyway. They’d see Arthur and go running, hear Johnny Dogg’s jokes and flush red with shame.

‘Yeah? And who would arrange that?’ you ask. You take a bite and throw him a closed-lip smile between chews. ‘I’m not doing it.’

He shrugs. ‘Well, I will.’ 

The beef is cooked perfectly, you cut another piece off as you reply. ‘You’re good with numbers, Michael, not parties.’

‘Alright.’ He picks up his fork limply, too focused on the side of your face to even consider eating something himself. ‘Mum will,’ he says to you, then, turning to her, ‘you’ll help, won’t you?’

Polly scoffs from opposite. You hadn’t realised she’d been paying attention, but of course she had. She never misses anything of interest. ‘Not bloody likely,’ she chides. ‘You’ll have to do something for yourself one day, Michael.’ She’s smiling, teasing with her lips soft and curling, but it still sours him.

‘Fine,’ he says, slouching. ‘No party, then. Christ.’

You almost roll your eyes, but it isn’t often that he suggests something like this. Something flashy. Normally, any gesture of affection he has for you is quiet, private. Tucked away just for the two of you. A big party like the one Lizzie’s thrown for Tommy is entirely new; you hadn’t meant to shoot him down so quickly. Sighing, you soften your voice and say, ‘We can have a party, baby.’ He hums. You put your hand to his face, thumb angled for his chin, but he tilts his head away in the last second.

Before you can complain, Polly catches your attention again. ‘Here, love,’ she says, ‘have some more potatoes.’ She holds the dish up for you, over the centre of the table and the glasses between.

‘Sure, thanks.’

You take the offering and when you pull the dish toward you, the bottom catches on your wine glass. It tips quickly, spilling red over the table, over you. You half expect it to shatter against the edge of your plate.

Cursing loudly, you abandon the dish into Michael’s waiting hands. ‘Sorry, fuck, sorry.’ You stand quickly and the commotion hushes every conversation that had been rolling within the room.

‘You’re meant to drink it, love,’ Arthur laughs, from whichever end he’s sat at — you’re too busy patting your napkin frantically onto the tablecloth to check.

‘God, sorry, sorry Lizzie.’ It’s stained, it’s definitely stained and ruined.

‘It’s on your dress,’ Michael comments, like you hadn’t noticed.

‘Never mind the dress,’ you snap back. ‘The sheet’s ruined.’

Tommy clears his throat. ‘Its just the tablecloth, [y/n], sit down.’

‘It’ll do more damage to your dress, love,’ Lizzie adds, sympathetically. ‘It’s alright.’

You pause, huffing slightly, then sit clumsily back into your chair. It’s always you, it seems, to stand out like this. To be un-calculated, accidental. Every Shelby is so precise, and so careful, and so in control of everything at once, somehow. Michael’s a Gray but he’s got it too, the grace. Lizzie isn’t even blood related and she holds herself the same. What is it about you? What do you lack?

‘Don’t worry,’ Michael says quietly, interrupting the thought by pouring words into your ear. ‘Don’t get yourself worked up.’

You don’t answer him, you just pout and dab at the stain on your lap. The wine’s sunk in deep already. It looks purple, not red, against the fabric.

‘Mary could help,’ he offers, after sighing at your silence. ‘She’ll be in the kitchen.’

You nod and stand, clutching the soggy napkin in your palm. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ you say to the table. Your voice only catches the attention of Polly and Finn, but no-one else challenges you when you turn to leave. It’s just another of your quirks, they must think, just something you do. They either don’t care, or didn’t see.

You hurry from the room with your ears turning hot. Michael will tell you later that you were being silly, worrying over nothing, but right now it feels mortifying. Leaving the room to see a maid about a stain. In the middle of a dinner party, no less.

When you reach the kitchen, Mary startles. Her eyes widen at the sight of you, like your presence alone means she’s done something wrong, like she’s forgotten something and you’re here to chase her up on it.

‘Don’t worry,’ you tell her, gesturing to your dress. ‘I just wanted to see if you had something for this.’

Her expression softens. The gentle folds in her face fall slack and for a moment she reminds you of your grandmother, though she never had the gall to be a gangster’s housekeeper. ‘Is it wine, miss?’

You sigh. ‘Tragically, yes.’

‘There isn’t much we can do for that.’ She hums. ‘But I’ll try, please sit.’

She gestures to the table, and the chairs which are wooden, and bare, and much plainer than the dining set upstairs. It’s welcoming in a way elegance will never be. You sigh into the seat and watch her pull bottles from various cupboards, busying herself quickly. Her dress folds as she does, creasing at her waist, comfortable enough to not restrict her movements. If only yours was like that. The dress you’re wearing is too expensive, and too tight, to be any good for anyone. Now, it isn’t even pretty.

‘Mary,’ you start, stilling her as soon as the idea strikes, lighting itself as a match would. ‘Do you have any spare uniforms?’

Her brow arches slowly, like she’s unsure of your intention and even more unsure of asking for it. ‘Miss?’

‘That I can wear,’ you explain. The thought is rolling, piling up and catching speed in your head. It makes sense really, a worker’s fit for the working woman, an apron for the spills. If the Shelbys can’t find the humour in it, you certainly will.

‘Only the ones the maids wear,’ she says.

You smile. If Michael could see you now, he’d accuse you of plotting something. He’d be right. ‘Perfect,’ you tell her, ‘that’s perfect, Mary.’

If your exit was quiet, unnoticed, then your return may as well have been an explosion. A great tremor to the room and all its inhabitants. You’re barely through the doorway before Arthur’s laugh is bursting from his chest, barking over Johnny’s head toward you. From the noise of it, the rest turn in your direction. Conversation is tossed out the window and onto the lawn. Lizzie laughs, more out of shock than anything else, Polly mutters a ‘Christ’, and you’re sure you catch Finn swallowing his beer like it’s running out. How Tommy reacts, you don’t know, you don’t look.

‘Fucking hell, woman, almost lost me drink over that,’ Johnny says, speaking before anyone else has chance to. 

You reach the table and give a half-confident bow, with your gaze sitting easily on Michael. ‘Would you like a refill, mister?’ you ask falsely, twisting your voice high enough that it hardly sounds like you at all.

His eyebrows lift, eyes widening, and then they drop again, quickly, like nothing’s happened. His face hardens slightly. Then, he turns away, facing forward, and he goes very still, and very quiet, and you don’t quite know what he’s thinking. You thought he’d laugh, or at least make some snarky comment about not mingling with the help. Instead, his eyes sit on the whiskey in his hands like you aren’t even there. 

‘What the hell you got that on for?’ Arthur asks, amusement in the crinkles by his eye. ‘Eh?’

You force a smile at him. ‘Thought I’d give you something to dream about, Arthur.’

There’s few snorts in response and then Tommy puts them to rest. ‘Alright, alright, sit down,’ he says, lighter than you’d expected, ‘unless you’d like to help serve pudding.’

‘If it gets me on the payslip, I’ll consider it,’ you reply, pulling your chair out to sit.

Michael doesn’t acknowledge you still. The plates are cleared, your wine glass is upright again, refilled, and then dessert is brought out. Everything in order as Lizzie’s itinerary no doubt demanded. By the time everyone’s eating again, your outfit is entirely forgotten about. There’s no comment on the plain black dress, no jokes on the white apron that pulls it tight to your waist, no awareness of it at all. You almost regret not wearing the matching hair-band, maybe if you did Michael would have had something more interesting to say.

When the other guests are suitably distracted, he finally leans into you, whispering harshly by your ear. ‘What’re you wearing?’ he asks. You don’t have to see his face to know he’s frowning.

Your eyebrows pinch, gaze on the spoonful of tart that you’re chasing around the plate. It’s very obvious that you’re wearing what the maids wear. It’s a joke, Michael, ever heard of that? ‘My dress is ruined,’ you answer. ‘I’ve left it with Mary to work on the stain.’

‘And you couldn’t find anything else to wear?’

‘No,’ you say firmly. ‘I couldn’t.’

His jaw flexes. He downs the last of his whiskey like it’s laudanum and you’re the ache. He wants to say something, you can see it, but he holds himself back. He shakes his head like he’s knocking it down, forcing it into his throat with the liquor.

After that, the pair of you eat in silence, and when Tommy invites the party to move into one of the more comfortable rooms, you stand in silence too. You let the rest of them go ahead of you. When Polly passes on her way out, she says, ‘That’s something I’d have done when I was your age,’ and even though she’s being friendly, you wish she hadn’t. The last thing you needed now, was to be told that you were acting like your boyfriend’s mother.

You follow the crowd out of the dining room with Michael behind you. Before you can get much further, he catches your wrist, tugging you back and sideways into one of the shorter hallways. It’s dimly lit, a hardly used corridor between rooms that you’d never been to, never even noticed. He sets you against the wall, careful despite the firmness of his grip, and then his hand lifts from your arm to sit flat on the wallpaper by your head.

‘Are you trying to embarrass me?’ he says sourly, words forced over sharp teeth. 

You frown. ‘No? Why would I?’

‘This.’ His chin dips and lifts again, gesturing to the uniform. He isn’t sneering but it’s implied.

‘I had to wear something, Michael.’ You had no idea it would offend him so much. You hadn’t even considered that it’d upset him, embarrass him. It was a stupid joke and a way out of a wine-stained dress.

He breathes heavily through his nose. He’s close, very close. The heat coming off him is warming you too, making the skin beneath your collar sticky with sweat. He lets his gaze sink down your body, then drags it up again, slowly.

‘What’s the problem?’ you ask.

He doesn’t answer. His eyes find yours and harden, the angles of his jaw setting like he’s forcing it to. Oh. Oh, you think, oh, that’s what this is. It doesn’t offend him, he isn’t insulted. He’s embarrassed because you’ve found something out about him, you’ve brought something to the surface that he hadn’t even known himself, and you’d done it in front of his family, without warning.

You smile. It stretches slowly across your cheeks as the realisation solidifies. ‘Does this turn you on, Michael?’ you tease. ‘It that what it is?’

His eyes squint slightly but he says nothing. That’s a mistake — his silence just encourages you, dares you to push it further. You’re right. Now you know you are. You see it in the sharpness behind his expression, in the weighted breaths against your skin. In the way he steels himself before you.

‘Who would have thought?’ you purr, tilting your hips forward.

You catch the material of your dress at the waist, pinching it, so that your movement pulls the hem up your legs. His chin drops. The dress is bunched enough to reveal your thighs, just high enough to show the top seam of your stockings. With his free hand, he pushes carelessly under the apron and lifts, scrunching it by your hip to give him a better view. The air puffs out of his nose like he’s breathing manually, like if he doesn’t force it he’ll stop all together.

‘Have I embarrassed you, Mr. Gray?’ you drip, honey pouring from your mouth, sinking into him like an opiate. It’s new, but it’s easy. It comes naturally. Perhaps it’s always been like this; without you realising, without you caring. A power imbalance that you both liked.

You’re looking at his lashes when his eyes dart back to you. ‘Stop it,’ he warns. The apron falls down again, his hand pulls away from the wall. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why?’ You’re enjoying it too much to pay any attention to his order. ‘Would you prefer I call you Sir?’

He swallows. You bite down on your lip as you wait for a response, half-convinced that he’s about to storm away and leave you there. Then, slowly, slowly like he’s fighting and losing, letting it flood the cracks, letting it pull him under, he leans into you. His palm cups your cheek. His head drops to put his mouth just below your chin, angled and ready by your neck.

‘Say it again,’ he coaxes, voice rough over your throat.

Your breath shakes, quiet, fragile from your mouth. ‘Say what, sir?’

He exhales sharply but it catches, and for a moment it sounds like he’s growled. Your Michael, growling, with his breath hot and heavy against you. If you took drugs, this would be yours, this would be your fix. You run your hand up his side, under the jacket and over the waistcoat.

‘Do you like it, sir?’ you ask.

‘Fuck.’ The words drags out of him, scrapes through his teeth like he hasn’t realised. ‘Bring it home,’ he says, pulling his face up to look at you. He looks serious, so serious, and so desperate that it should be ridiculous.

‘What?’

‘The dress,’ he answers tightly, ‘the outfit. Bring it home with you.’

You’ve won. Somehow, you’ve won. You’d put on a uniform you had no right to wear, and now Michael was begging for you to bring it home. Desperate to have you like this, again, just for him. And you would, of course you would, you’d be an idiot to deny him something like that. To deny something so mutually beneficial. You’d get your dress back from Mary, and thank her kindly, and then take the maid’s clothes home without saying anything else. But, that was no fun now, that didn’t see to the ache that had started to build between your legs. That didn’t feed the hunger. You had Michael alone, in a darkened corridor, needy and tightroping between disciplines, teetering on the edge of his restraint. That’s too rare, too good to lose. You won’t let it end yet.

Instead, you pout your bottom lip and say, ‘Don’t you want me now? Did I do something wrong, sir?’

He groans, eyes rolling to the ceiling.

You’re impatient so, tiring of the gap, you pull him forward so that your hips are together. He’s hard, you realise, taut against his trousers. You’ve barely touched him and already he wants you, his body craves the way yours does. ‘Kiss me,’ you say messily, quickly, forgetting all about the persona you’d adopted. ‘Kiss me, Mikey.’

‘Hm?’ he hums, putting his other hand to your face, holding you still as he settles his attention on you again. He pushes back until your spine is straightened along the wall. ‘What was that?’

The slip in character hadn’t gone unnoticed. It’d broken the tension enough to give him the upper hand, to finally let him make his play.

‘You don’t talk to me like that,’ he says. ‘Do you?’ The words pour out of him thickly, whiskey and languid control melting across your cheeks, over your lips.

‘Sorry, sir,’ you reply.

Now, it was your own breath that came stiffly, unwilling to move of its own accord. Your chest rises against his because you tell it to. The pressure from his crotch grows, firm and wanting against the dip in your hip.

His tongue runs between his lips once. He’s following your expression carefully, noting each shift, each hesitation. He can see you’re cracking, you’re sure of that. The look he has is the look of a man who’s already won. One that has want he wants, but enjoys the sport of taking it. He puts his nose to the hair by your ear and breathes in deeply, sending goosebumps along your skin. ‘Ask properly,’ he says, his voice low, rumbling.

You swallow quickly. You’re flushing hot. There’s fire in you, flames curling and rising, pulling upwards from your thighs, your stomach, swallowing your heart before it can stutter a beat. ‘Please,’ you start, ‘please kiss me, sir.’

‘Better.’

His eyelids flutter once, as he looks to your lips, and then he’s kissing you. Hard. Harder than he has for a while.

Your hands go to his wrists, hanging onto him as he holds you, as he kisses you into the wall, into the house, through the brickwork and into Elysium. You moan against him and he pushes his tongue into your mouth, wanting more. Needing more.

‘Not a sound,’ he pants as he pulls away. His grip on your face disappears and then his hands are on your thighs, roughly, desperately. His palms settle behind your knees and tug them up, lifting your legs off the ground and putting them around his waist instead. He takes your weight like it’s nothing; uses his hips and his own body against you to keep you upright, between him and the wall. ‘Not a fucking sound, right?’

You nod, frantic, already reaching for him again, already pushing your mouth to his for the taste. For the whiskey. For the heat and the need, and the tongue between your teeth, for his cock, hard and ready against the softest part of you.

He pushes the dress up abruptly, piling it and the apron over your stomach. ‘I want to hear you say it,’ he breathes, forcing it between kisses. ‘Say you’ll keep quiet.’ His touch is searing, alight with something so untapped, it’s raw. Primal.

‘I’ll be quiet, sir,’ you answer pliantly. Willingly. He could ask anything of you now and you’d give it to him, you’d bleed it into his palm like molten silver. ‘Please fuck me,’ you beg. ‘Please, sir.’

He growls again and this time it’s on purpose. His face buries into your neck, into the base of your throat. He kisses the skin hungrily, wet and biting, lustful. He takes you and you let him, you invite him to, because you always have wanted it, the imbalance. The game was fake but the power is real, the submission is honest. Cultivated. It was him over you, always, and you liked that. You wanted that more than anything and now you had it, scorching between your fingers. Burning you into the wallpaper.

You moan; his hand goes to your mouth firmly, flat palm against your lips. An order without words. Quiet, he says, stay quiet. All you have to do is oblige.

**Author's Note:**

> i have nothing to say about this one . he's sexy and it's gotten in my head.


End file.
